MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican army on Tuesday arrested the brother of the country's most wanted drug cartel boss, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the Mexico Defense Department said.
The army said it captured Antonio Oseguera in possession of weapons in a suburb of Guadalajara, the capital of the western state of Jalisco. It said he oversaw violent actions and logistics, and bought weapons and laundered money for the hyperviolent Jalisco New Generation Cartel, often known simply as the Jalisco cartel.
The U.S. Treasury Department lists Antonio Oseguera’s alias as “El Tony Montana,” an apparent reference to the fictional protagonist of the 1983 gangster film “Scarface.”
Antonio Oseguera is on a Treasury Department sanctions list for his ties to the cartel. However, it was not immediately clear if there is a U.S. warrant of extradition request for him.
Authorities previously arrested El Mencho's wife, alleging she was involved in the cartel's illegal activities.
The United States has offered a $10 million reward for El Mencho's capture, but the cartel has violently fought past attempts to arrest him.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said Mexico no longer has a policy of detaining drug lords, but authorities have gone after top lieutenants of some cartels, including the Jalisco.
The Jalisco cartel is arguably Mexico’s most powerful and violent. It made its reputation with brazen attacks on Mexico’s security forces, including a 2020 assassination attempt on Mexico City’s police chief that wounded him and killed three other people.
In 2015, cartel gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.
The cartel has ruthlessly expanded its territory beyond Jalisco, spurring bloodshed in states including Guanajuato and Michoacan, as well as reaching its tentacles into Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts in Quintana Roo.
The cartel’s main business is trafficking drugs to the United States, especially methamphetamine and fentanyl.
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